What's Real To Us
by SmotherFate
Summary: SPOILERS! If you haven't seen the walking dead all the way (seasons 1,2 ad 3) then you're in danger of ruining it for yourselves! Carol begins to see some old faces...


She pulled her way up the ladder indignantly, with so much force it would appear that she was trying to pull it off the wall and even though it's probably an exaggeration, she at that moment wouldn't mind if that was the case, hoping she would bring herself down with it, crushing her body…though the fall wouldn't kill her.

She reached the top instead, taking her post up above the gate for her watch. Unable to settle she paced back and forth with a rifle on her back, hand gun in her holster, a knife tucked away by her waist and finally a pair of binoculars in her hand.

After a few months in the prison and with so much that'd happened that had pushed her into shooting practice, Rick finally let her share some of the responsibility in watching over the grounds for straying walkers that might decide to be more trouble than their worth.

It's not that she didn't already feel like she was helping before but...with her low self-worth issues, courtesy of Ed, she felt like she should always be trying that much harder than everyone else…maybe feeling like she needed to prove something to them and hopefully, to herself too. Ed's constant abuse for over a decade wasn't just going to disappear because he had. Well, after she'd killed him anyway.

And…he hadn't really gone. Not for her. She wished she just meant metaphorically but…

"Ha, hah, ha, you really thought that'd work?" the voice that bolted her feet to the ground, "You're so disgusting, you-you think he'd want that? With you?!" He turned his back to her, "Pathetic,"

Carol lifted the binoculars to her eyes, looking out across the surroundings, gripping them with unnecessary strength that her knuckles and the joints of her fingers turned white while the creases were involuntarily smoothed out, stretched out.

"Knew you were a fucking whore," for some reason she laughed at that, "tho', still thought I taught you your place," She sat down cross-legged, still holding the binoculars to her face, not as a response to what he said, just if she had to listen to this then she might as well get comfy.

For a moment, she lowered her head and turned it slightly, just to check if she could still see the tattered ends of his trousers and dirty shoes against the floor behind her.

Yeah, they were still there.

She ran a hand over her face and rubbed her eyes.

It'd been a week since _they _appeared and she was hardly getting used to it. She couldn't help but ask herself 'Why? Why now?' Nothing particular happened on the day for it to spark any sort of…whatever this was. She could… ask but she couldn't bring herself to. She hadn't responded to either of them, well verbally anyhow.

The time Ed had appeared, luckily, was when she was by herself in the laundry room. She turned around, away from the washer and there he was; all meat with a snarl of a grin on his face, malice in his eyes.

She had sunk to the floor nearly hyperventilating, staring, her eyes wide as he spewed some sort of bitter, gritty greeting. She had tried to will herself to wake up, just spring out of bed in mid-nightmare-sweat but no. Next theory on her mind was that she was losing hers, which unfortunately had yet to be challenged.

The first time he had appeared while she was around some of the group she had flinched and the tension in her was palpable, though more importantly it was noticeable. A few of them looked at her through covered eyes, some shone with curiosity, others with concern. Some of the group had come over to talk to her, maybe to cheer her up or calm her down, she couldn't tell which one.

Then there was Rick and Hershel who were more discreet, and had quietly asked if she was okay and was she maybe sick etc. It made her smile that they cared but obviously, she wasn't too keen on telling them her reasons so she tried to reassure them all, that she was perfectly fine and just a little achy from an awkward night's sleep.

It didn't really make sense so she was pleasantly surprised that it actually kind of worked. They didn't have any real reason to doubt her after all.

After the first day, she had handled the whole Ed thing unexpectedly well and she couldn't help but worry that that might be more evidence to throw at the crazy theory. Maybe it was because of a resolve to hide it from the group?

But Carol had to think that after everything she'd been through she must have become quite resilient? Dare she say braver than she had been since they left the camp and afterwards…the farm. So maybe she was just getting used to taking what this world threw at her…and what it took from her.

With the help from all the support that the group provided perhaps it was inevitable. Especially Daryl's support with…Sophia, the other's had been great as well…most of them anyway but Daryl…Daryl was special. She shouldn't have let it happen but he had become her rock, her river of hope and he was the one who paid for it.

"What's up with you?" Although blunt, Daryl wasn't without tact, he had waited till the opportunity arose when they were alone outside on patrol duty.

"What?" She'd asked oddly, eyebrows low.

"You've been actin' edgy since mornin'" He told her, adjusting his hold on his crossbow.

"Ah, right…" She'd been trying to focus on anything but the little fearful nagging in her head from seeing Ed that morning, that she wasn't really paying anyone or anything attention.

"Anythin' wrong?" He said gruffly, not taking his eyes from behind the fence.

She didn't want to lie to him but with him being so easy to push away she didn't want to say nothing either so she invented a parallel truth.

"I guess I had a nightmare," She smiled in a knowing way as if to say, 'Yeah, I know, it's silly,'

"No point getting worked up 'bout something that never happened," having started looking out through the fence as they walked but by the end he had glanced at her through his long bangs.

She nodded in agreement, the smile never leaving her face.

After a silence they're so used to having, to her astonishment, he spoke up again, "So…what happened?"

She had conjured the lie with a purpose but now she couldn't bring herself to put detail into it. What could she say? I dreamt of a monster? Of Ed? Of….

She decisively put her hand on his shoulder and said, "You know what? As you said there's no point, I shouldn't feed it any attention. It's not real, so I won't give it any more thought,"

And that's exactly what she did, well strained to do. After that she pretended not to see or hear him and just tried to carry on her days as normally as she could.

Easier said than done, she knew. Sometimes he would pace nearby like an angry tiger who'd been caged or something, that was easier to get by and then there were slightly harder times, times when he would be snarl and nasty making her still, find a spot to burn a hole at until he'd finish. If she was the woman she used to be, she'd probably try to get away, always moving, or try to hide but…now she just felt angry, frustrated and it was beginning to pent up.

Just the other day he grunted a racist comment towards Glen, after he'd asked Carol for her list just before him and Maggie were going to make another run into town and the second he left she swung her knife (though be it a butter knife that wouldn't really do much harm) right at his head.

She missed but it's the thought that counts she'd reassured herself. When she went to pick it up he was nowhere to be seen. That's when she began to figure out that they withdraw if you approached them. They could approach you but you couldn't them.

He didn't appear again that day.

Then, then there was _her_.

A few days once Ed had begun to 'ghost', she did too.

Carol heard her before she saw her. Her laugh echoing through, what seemed to be, the entire prison, bouncing endlessly until it hit Carol's ears. Her head snapped up like she just heard a gunshot.

"Carol?" Carl tested from his stance opposite her, as they did when they manned the front gate ready to let those in who had left on a run.

"I'll be right back," She quickly told him, already in a run towards their prison hold where the laughter seemed to be the loudest.

She ran passed the dinning area and through the gate into the cell block.

It was here! It was filling the whole room but no-one seemed to notice. Not Glen, Maggie, Beth or Hershel, they had all stared at her in confusion as she bolted across them. Hershel had followed her, hobbling behind and saw her spinning around the room, eyes darting like she was looking for something.

"Carol?" He'd asked his eyebrows low in concern. She jumped up the stairs, taking two at a time but stopped still half way up when she saw a very familiar pair of jean cladded legs dash by her face, however, when she looked up there was nothing there and the laughter had stopped.

"Carol?" She heard him ask again. She looked down at him for a second before she heard a shuffle come from her and Lori's cell. She continued her way up the stairs, slower this time, and she never took her eyes of that cell. She came around the railing and took the final steps, keeping her pace steady as she turned into it, freezing at what she saw inside.

"Sophia," the quiet, desperate word didn't make the 'ghost' twitch. Carol shook to her knees, looking as Sophia stood in the corner of her cell, one arm across her chest holding her beloved doll while the other hung loosely by her side.

She wasn't laughing like she had heard her, she wasn't even smiling but she wasn't frowning either.

"Carol," the gentle voice spooked her and she jolted her head at Hershel who was now upstairs a few feet away. He never came upstairs for understandable reasons which showed Carol how worried he must have been. Yet, she still couldn't respond, she turned her head back to Sophia but she had already gone.

Carol shakily got up and put her attention on Hershel.

"Hershel, your leg…" She tried to continue but her voice was failing, he waved his hand and shook his head slightly to try to relieve her a little.

"Carol, what is it?" his voice laced with worry, "What's wrong?"

"Nothing," She sighed out, "…It's nothing," suddenly feeling exhausted, "I need to get back to Carl, left him out there by himself," She said that but she didn't actually make a move to leave until she'd helped Hershel back down the stairs.

He went to say something once they reached the bottom but held back and let her go, watching her as she left.

"Everything okay?" Carl had asked casually once she'd retuned.

She showed him a small smile and said "Yeah, just…needed to check something," a little uncomfortable as she thought what the group must be thinking inside about her panicked display, "Sorry to have left you. Was everything alright?"

He looked down towards the floor, lifting it back up to face her every so often as he spoke, "Yeah, I can handle it; I can man the gate by myself, you know?" Carol could hear the subtle annoyance in his voice.

Carl was so determined to be treated like an adult, he didn't realise that that just made him seem so much more like a child.

"I never said you couldn't," Carol told him honestly, looking directly at him as he refused her, "But, be it you, Rick, Daryl, Maggie or whoever, I would still stand with them here. Not 'cause I didn't think they could _handle it _but because I care and working the gate takes two, one to open it and the other to have their back as well as the group who are returning or leaving from the walkers," She elaborated gently.

"Like a buddy system," he grieved.

"No," the short utterance firm but not scolding, "Like partners." She offered, smiling with the term trying to convince him.

He finally looked up at her, squinting from under his sheriff's hat with a considering expression before smiling at her. A smirky-grin which gave out a little laugh and Carol didn't know if he was laughing at the notion or agreeing but she was happy either way. Because he smiled. And she smiled back, just as cheerful seeming.

Tyres moving heavily along gravel caught their attention putting them into action, opening the gate then rushing out to kill incoming walkers as Rick drove the car inside. Carl using his silenced Beretta 92FS, Carol, a pickaxe although she had her rifle on her back, just in case.

The crunching of their skulls, the pick quickly burrowing its way through into their brains made Carol feel satisfied every time. She was still afraid, of course, but like everyone else, she just didn't have the time or luxury to show it.

The pickaxe wasn't her first choice but it had done her well during these gate duties and it was doing great for her upper body strength, giving her actual muscle where she had been so skinny before. Although, she was still the leanest in the group and no one could really tell but _she_ could at least and she smiled thinking that she might actually be making a difference for the group.

The car rolled in and in turn the rest of the group started appearing out of the prison to welcome them back.

* * *

Author's notes:

Okay, so that was like half of the first chapter, haha. The beginning might be a bit confusion but you're not meant to know what they're talking about. That'll get brought to light later : ) The next part of the chapter will carry on with the flashbacks of the week gone and about Ed and Sophia appearing. As well as some more Carol/Daryl moments.

Tell me what you guys think. I need motivation to carry on with this piece.

Hope you enjoyed!


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